Cling
by paperstorm
Summary: Part of my Deleted Scenes series. The tag for Mystery Spot. Wincest.


**Contains dialogue from the episode Mystery Spot. It belongs to Eric Kripke and Jeremy Carver.**

**Part of my Deleted Scenes series. Full list of fics in reading order available on my profile page. They will make more sense if read in order. :)**

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When Dean dies and it's Wednesday, at first Sam doesn't know what to do. Because this can't be happening. The loop was on Tuesday. Dean dies on Tuesday. The loop is finished, Sam's out of it, so Dean can't be dead. But he is. He's heavy and motionless in Sam's arms and there's no pulse under his skin. He's gone. He _can't be_ but he is. Sam just cries. He sits there in the parking lot on the wet pavement, holding Dean's lifeless body and sobbing until he runs out of tears. Someone calls an ambulance, someone in one of the other rooms maybe, and eventually paramedics show up and try to take Dean away from him but Sam doesn't let them. He screams at them and he weeps uncontrollably and he won't let them take his brother. If Sam just keeps his eyes closed for long enough, maybe he'll wake up to _Heat of the Moment _and Dean will be alive. There was still time left. Time for Sam to keep Dean from going to Hell. Sam was so sure he could. This is the wrong ending to their story, and Sam's mind can't wrap itself around what that means so he just hugs Dean and lets the tears fall, the sobs tearing him up inside like knives as he realizes that the Trickster promised today would be Wednesday, but he didn't promise he wouldn't kill Dean.

"Don't leave me," he pleads with Dean, his voice shaking and breaking in the middle, but it's too late. Dean's already gone.

Eventually, hours or maybe weeks later, Sam can't tell; the EMTs convince him to let go. Sam doesn't want to. Every cell in his body is screaming at him not to. But they want to take Dean – to take him away from Sam – and Sam's too weak to fight them. Then it's all a blur. A spinning, chaotic, nauseating blur. Sam's eyes don't dry for days. He doesn't sleep. He doesn't eat. Someone asks him if there's anyone they can call and the only person Sam can think of is Bobby, and then when he shows up the blur just gets worse. He tries to hug Sam but Sam shoves him away. Being touched by someone who isn't Dean feels like fire ants on Sam's skin. Bobby claims Dean's body because Sam can't, takes him and Sam both back to South Dakota and has Dean cremated in a proper hunter's funeral in the woods out back that Sam doesn't go to. Instead he chugs half a bottle of whiskey and climbs into the bed in Bobby's house that was always Dean's, curled up with Dean's leather jacket, and cries himself to sleep. When he wakes up with Dean's scent in his nose, for just a moment Sam thinks maybe he's back and everything's okay. Then when he realizes it's just the jacket in his arms, he takes it outside and lights it on fire. He never wants to see it again.

Bobby tries to help. He pats Sam sympathetically on the shoulder whenever he passes and he makes Sam food and forces him to eat it, and he says over and over again that Sam can stay for as long as he needs to. Sam stays about a week. Every night he goes to bed with tears on his pillow and every morning he wakes up puffy-eyed and so empty inside it hurts worse than a knife. And then he can't do it anymore. The Trickster took Dean away, so the Trickster can bring him back. It's the only way. If he can find the Trickster, Sam can force him to give his brother back.

For almost six months, Sam exists as a shell of himself. He hunts when he finds one. He's reckless; more reckless than Dean ever is and more reckless than Dean would ever let Sam be, but Dean isn't here. Mostly he looks for the Trickster. He eats and sleeps only to keep himself alive but food tastes like ash and he wakes up in the mornings even more tired than when he went to sleep. He does everything on a schedule; sleeping, showering, meals, putting gas in the Impala, brushing his teeth. Everything he does in a day has an assigned time and Sam sticks to it like Military school. It's the only way he can stay sane enough to keep going, the only way to keep himself from dwelling on missing Dean. Yes, he wants Dean there beside him when he wakes up so badly it burns inside. But he doesn't have the time to think about it, because it's time to make the bed.

He doesn't feel anything. He gets shot and it doesn't hurt. He burns himself on a stove and it doesn't feel hot. He drinks too much one or twice and throws up, but he doesn't feel sick. Most of the time, he isn't even sad that Dean's gone. He's just hell-bent on getting him back. Every now and then, he goes to a new but familiar diner to get himself supper and accidentally orders a burger for Dean out of habit. Sometimes it takes him a while to realize he's done it. He'll set two plates on the table and be finished his whole meal before he notices he's been staring at the second plate the whole time. He never throws it out after. Can't bring himself to even touch it. He just leaves it there and tries to check out of the motel before it starts going moldy. On those nights, Sam wishes he were dead. Almost enough to do it himself. The only thing that stops him is chasing the Trickster. He hunts it with an obsessiveness that would put even Dad to shame. Charts and maps and newspaper clippings and tracking down leads. But Sam needs Dean back. He just does. So he keeps moving.

When Sam looks in the mirror, he doesn't recognize himself. He isn't Sam anymore. Not without Dean.

The months march on steadily and somehow they feel as if they're flying by at warp-speed and dragging out slower than a snail at the same time. Sam loses track of what day it is, of how long it's been since Dean was taken from him. Once he thinks it's been a year, until he looks at the calendar and realizes it's only been a few weeks. Another time he thinks it's been one month and then figures out it's been four. None of it matters. Everything that used to matter slipped away from Sam when Dean did. Sam doesn't spare any thoughts for _if he can't get Dean back_. He just has to, so it's pointless to consider other options.

Eventually, _finally_, Bobby calls with good news. He's been calling every week or so but Sam listens to the messages and then deletes them if the word _Trickster_ isn't in them. He doesn't need Bobby's sympathy, and he doesn't need Bobby's help. Unless it has to do with bringing Dean back. When Bobby says, "I found him," Sam gets into the car and drives all night with his jaw clenched and his fingers white-knuckling the steering wheel. Bobby hugs him again, and this time Sam doesn't shove him off but he doesn't hug back either. Bobby says they can summon the Trickster by bleeding a human dry, and Sam is somewhat aware of how he should react to that, how he would have six months ago, but he doesn't care anymore. If murdering someone is what it takes to get Dean back, Sam won't even flinch. But then Bobby won't let him. Bobby offers himself up so the spell will work, and Sam knew it. He isn't Bobby. He whips out the stake and drives it into Bobby's back. For a moment, nothing happens. Bobby just lies there, bleeding and motionless, and Sam's heart stops thinking he killed the _real_ Bobby. But he didn't. It was the Trickster, like Sam thought.

"You're right. I was just screwin' with you," he says with a smile on his face. "Pretty good, though, Sam. Smart. Let me tell ya, whoever said Dean was the dysfunctional one has never seen you with a sharp object in your hands. Holy _Full Metal Jacket_!"

For the first time since Sam doesn't know when, he feels something. He feels sick. He feels like sobbing. He misses Dean. "Bring him back," he whispers.

"Who, Dean? Didn't my girl send you flowers?" the Trickster asks. "Dean's dead. He ain't comin' back. His soul's downstairs doin' the Hellfire Rumba as we speak."

He's lying. He has to be. Because if Dean's dead, then so is Sam. "Just take us back to that Tuesday. Or, Wednesday. When it all started. Please. We won't come after you, I swear."

"You swear."

"Yes!"

"I don't know," the Trickster groans. "Even if I could …"

"You can!"

"True. But that don't mean I should. Sam, there's a lesson here that I've been trying to drill into that freakish, Cro-Magnon skull of yours."

"A lesson?" Sam asks incredulously. "What lesson?"

"This obsession to save Dean? The way you two keep sacrificing yourself for each other? Nothing good comes out of it! Just blood, and pain. Dean's your weakness. The bad guys know it, too. It's gonna be the death a'you, Sam. Sometimes you just gotta let people go."

Sam's eyes sting with tears and his lower lip trembles, completely out of his control. "He's my brother."

"Yup. And like it or not, this is what life's gonna be like without him."

"Please," Sam begs, his voice barely a breath of air. "Just … please."

The Trickster sighs and shakes his head. "I swear, it's like talkin' to a brick wall. Okay, look. This all stopped being fun months ago. You're Travis Bickle in a skirt, pal. I'm over it."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning that's for me to know, and you to find out."

He snaps his fingers, and it all goes black. Music startles Sam awake. His eyes fly open, and he sits up quickly and looks around. It's the motel room in Broward County. It's been six months but Sam still recognizes it. The song playing on the clock radio isn't by Asia. And Dean's standing across the room brushing his teeth.

"What, you gonna sleep all day?" he asks, loud and obnoxious and irritating and _beautiful_. He nods toward the radio. "I know, no Asia. This station sucks."

Sam's numb. He's not happy. He's not sad. He's just numb. He can't feel his fingers and he can't remember how to swallow and he can't understand why he's back here, why Dean's alive and okay and _here_, but it makes no difference.

"It's Wednesday?" Sam whispers, hardly daring to believe it even as his heart beats so fast it makes him dizzy.

Dean frowns. "Yeah. Which usually follows Tuesday. Turn that thing off."

Sam ignores him. He throws the blanket off his legs and gets up and walks over to his brother, throwing his arms around Dean's neck and hugging him tightly. He needs to know for sure. Dean needs to be _real_. And he is. He's warm against Sam's chest and Sam just barely resists breaking down.

"Dude, how many Tuesdays did you have?" Dean deadpans.

"Enough. Wait, what do you remember?"

Sam pulls away and Dean looks up at him with his big-brother concerned look all over his face. When Sam was thirteen, he hated that look. Now he wants it burned into his brain so he never forgets what it looks like. "I remember you were pretty wacked out yesterday. I remember catchin' up with the Trickster. That's about it."

Sam nods. No matter how hard he tries, his brain won't let him reconcile logic with what's happening right now. So he just stops trying. "Let's go."

"No breakfast?" Dean asks, disappointed.

Sam almost laughs, but then he doesn't remember how. "No breakfast."

Dean asks him, before they leave, if something else happened. Sam says no. He doesn't know if he'll tell Dean about it later. Sam never wants to think about it again. And Dean wouldn't understand. He'd try, but he wouldn't.

They drive all day. Dean can tell Sam's upset so he tries his best to cheer Sam up. They stop a couple times to eat and Dean orders salad instead of fries with his burger because he knows it makes Sam happy when he takes care of himself. He lets Sam pick the radio station and doesn't once complain about what Sam picks. He makes jokes; stupid, immature ones that are more his sense of humor than Sam's, but Sam tries to laugh anyway. He tells Sam a story he doesn't remember about when Sam was three years old and he kept a frog as a pet in a cardboard box for a few weeks. Dad was pissed about it, but Dean convinced him to let Sam keep it until they had to leave town. He even drives the speed limit. Sam's never really cared too much that Dean speeds, but it's a nice gesture anyway. Dean's _trying_, and Sam appreciates it even if it doesn't quite work how Dean's hoping it will. By the time they decide to stop for the night, Sam's still numb. Dean did manage to distract him a few times, but he always went back down to zero right after.

Dean orders Chinese and they eat in silence. Sam can feel Dean's eyes on him, watching him and worrying, but he tries to ignore it. Sam showers and Dean cleans a couple guns somehow without taking his eyes off Sam. He turns the TV on, finds an old Western movie, and watches it while Sam stares at the black-and-white screen without actually seeing it. Halfway through it starts to hurt his eyes, so Sam sits on the edgesof one of the beds and looks down at his hands. He suddenly can't completely remember everything that happened in the last six months. He remembers pieces, like digging a bullet out of his chest and changing the oil in the Impala in Phoenix and stabbing Bobby with the stake, but they feel fuzzy and far away like they happened to someone else. Like _Sam_ was someone else while Dean was gone.

"How many times, did …?" Dean asks quietly, from where he's sitting on the other bed.

"I don't know. I stopped counting after a hundred," Sam answers, his voice flat and lifeless, and Dean exhales and closes his eyes for a moment.

"Jesus. Must've been awful."

"Was better than …" Sam starts, and then he trails off. He's still not sure he wants Dean to know about how long he was actually dead, and how off-the-rails Sam went. Sam's not even sure he could talk about it if he wanted to. Not without breaking down, anyway.

"Than what?"

Sam hesitates, but then the words just spill out of his mouth. "You died when it was Wednesday."

Dean frowns. "What?"

"The Trickster. When I finally figured out he was the one doing it, I threatened him and he said I'd wake up and it'd be Wednesday. And it was, but you still died. A junkie shot you in the parking lot. And then you were … dead. For real, not just for a day."

For a long time, Dean doesn't say anything. He just looks at Sam with his eyebrows scrunched up and his mouth tight and a look in his eyes halfway between confused and sad. "How long?" he asks eventually, and Sam's voice breaks over the words, "Six months."

"Fuck," Dean swears under his breath. "We ever run into that douchbag again and I'm gonna rip his fuckin' nuts off."

Sam presses his lips together and tries not to cry. It doesn't work. Tears spill down his cheeks for the first time in five and a half months, hot and steady and full of more grief than he's capable of expressing. Dean notices after a second, and in an instant he's back by Sam's side. He drops onto his knees in front of Sam, pushes his way into the V of Sam's legs, and wraps his arms around Sam's back. Sam collapses forward against Dean's chest, burying his face into Dean's shoulder and soaking the material of his shirt with tears he can't stop.

"Shh," Dean soothes, petting through Sam's hair and rocking him back and forth just a little like he used to when Sam was younger. "I got you, little brother. It's okay."

It's the exact opposite of okay, but Sam can't say that out loud. He just clings to Dean because it's all he can do.

"M'so sorry, Sammy. I can't even imagine what that was like. I couldn't make it _one_ day when you died. Six months is … hell, I don't even know what it is. It's Hell."

"I missed you so much it hurt to breathe," Sam hears himself say in a shaky, watery voice that barely sounds like his own. "Only thing that kept me goin' was trying to get you back."

Dean shakes his head. "I … I don't know what to say. I just saw you yesterday, but you …"

It's was the worst thing that's ever happened to Sam. Worse than finding out Dean made the deal. Worse than seeing Jessica slit open on the ceiling. Worse than when he was a teenager and he kissed Dean and Dean pushed him away. Worse than losing Dad and Mom and Madison and Ash combined. But Sam doesn't know how to say any of that out loud. He doesn't even really know how to feel it. So he just holds on to his brother.

"I don't know how to make this better," Dean says softly, and Sam can hear the self-hatred in his voice. Sam knows, better than anyone, how much Dean hates it when he has to admit that.

"Me neither," Sam whispers. Dean leans back enough to look up into Sam's eyes, and Sam blinks back the tears so he can focus on his brother's face. He finds tears in Dean's eyes too, and then Dean kisses him and switches flip on in Sam's brain that have been stuck on off for half a year.

It starts with a soft, reassuring brush of lips, but Sam isn't in the same hemisphere as the mood for slow and sweet. He pushes his tongue into Dean's mouth, tilting his head and mouthing hungrily at Dean's lips and turning the kiss quick and insistent and full of silver-tipped desperation.

"Sammy," Dean mumbles, even as he kisses Sam back; like he's making sure Sam really wants this right now.

Sam didn't realize how much he missed his nickname until it was gone. He doesn't bother answering. He just stands up and pulls Dean with him, pushing at Dean's jacket so it falls to the floor. Dean knows him better than anyone else ever has or ever will; he can tell what Sam needs and Sam's never been more grateful for that because there is no way he could've gotten the words out. Dean strips them both of their clothes, fumbling a little with the buttons on Sam's shirt and Sam pulls it over his head and off so quickly he hears a couple seams pop. He shoves his own pants down and kicks them off and Dean does the same. Then he grabs Dean and pulls him in close and Dean all but tackles him onto the mattress. The wind gets knocked out of Sam a little as Dean lands heavily on his chest but Sam doesn't bother to catch his breath before he smashes his lips back into Dean's. Oxygen doesn't matter anyway. Dean is what keeps Sam alive.

Sam's hard and dizzy and he wants Dean, he's wanted him since the first moment Dean kissed him, but everything he was feeling before is still there too – how shattered he is from living through the nightmare of the Trickster's game, desperation to save Dean, anger that Dean hasn't been letting him, hurt that Dean doesn't seem to care about all this like Sam does, utter devastation at the idea of spending the rest of his life without his brother; especially now that he knows exactly what it will be like – and it's all getting mixed up until Sam's brain is swimming in the cocktail of nice physical sensations and horrible, gut-wrenchingly painful emotions. It's too much to cope with all at once, and all Sam can do is hold onto Dean and kiss him hard and hope he can hold himself together. Dean grinds his hips down into Sam's, their cocks rubbing together dry and hot and almost uncomfortable but Sam bucks up into him anyway.

"Hey," Dean says softly, letting his lips linger just barely against Sam's. He can feel how desperate Sam is, feel it running like lava through Sam's veins. "Shh. It's okay, Sammy. M'right here."

Half of Sam knows that, but the other half of him feels like Dean's already gone. Like Dean was gone the moment he kissed the demon at the crossroads. He's slipping through Sam's fingers and so far there isn't anything Sam can do about it. He hates feeling so helpless. And he hates the person he became when Dean was gone.

"I can't," he answers shakily, holding Dean's face and kissing him again.

"Can't what?" Dean asks gently, but Sam doesn't answer because he doesn't know. He shakes his head, feeling sick from the frantic feeling fluttering in his chest, and Dean just nods. "Okay. S'okay, I got you."

He tries to move away, but Sam tightens his arm around Dean's neck. He doesn't want Dean further away from him than the breath of space between them right now.

"Gotta get the lube, Sammy," Dean says, his voice soft and understanding like he knows how close Sam is to the edge of insanity.

"Don't want it," Sam mumbles, smushing their lips together again and pushing his hips up so his cock rubs against Dean's. "Wanna feel it, want it to hurt."

"Well, I don't." Dean kisses him tenderly but then pulls himself out of Sam's grasp long enough to grab his bag and fish out the little tube. He's only gone for a couple of seconds but Sam feels the loss as poignantly as if he'd been gone for an hour.

Sam uses the time to shuffle up the bed so his head is on the pillows, and when Dean gets back he doesn't waste any time crawling back on top of Sam. He kisses Sam roughly, more teeth and tongue than anything else, and Sam thinks he tastes blood but he kisses back just as fiercely. Some irrational little part of his brain thinks maybe if they do this rough enough, they'll both just die right here wrapped up in each other and then he won't have to lose his brother.

Dean reaches between them and picks Sam's cock up, gives it a couple slow strokes. It's been six months since anyone but Sam himself has touched him, and when he did it, it was clinical; because he's male and he has to, not because he ever enjoyed it. But he doesn't want it right now. Sam shoves at his brother's shoulder and snaps, "Dean!"

Dean doesn't answer but he gets the message. He pulls away from Sam momentarily so he can pour some lube on his fingers, and then he's back, thrusting his tongue into Sam's mouth as his hand reaches down between Sam's legs and a finger pushes into Sam's body. The stretch is more intense than usual because Dean doesn't go slow, but Sam feels like he can finally breathe properly again. Like he's finally got something anchoring him to this moment. Dean works his finger in and out a couple of times while he licks and nips along Sam's jaw, and then he's pushing back in with two much sooner than he usually would but Sam groans and rocks down against him. Dean bends his fingers to press against Sam's prostate and Sam cries out softly at the tremors of pleasure it sends through him like sparks.

"Please," he whispers, turning his head to nuzzle against the side of Dean's.

"Sammy," Dean says in a low voice – a warning – but Sam is too far past the point of no return on this one to find it sweet that Dean never wants to hurt him.

"Dean. _Please_," he whispers again, more desperate this time, edging on completely out of control.

Dean sighs and doesn't look entirely happy about it, but he listens. He sits back on his heels, slicks his cock up, and then leans back down to lick at Sam's lips as he lines himself up and pushes in. It hurts more than it normally does because the prep was too fast and Dean probably didn't use quite as much lube as he should have but it's exactly what Sam needs. He wants the feeling eternally etched in his memory; never wants to forget how it feels to have Dean splitting him open, connected to him so deeply it almost feels permanent. Dean does move slower than he did with his fingers, working his cock into Sam in little, shallow thrusts, but Sam rocks down against him to get it in deeper. He grips Dean's back, nails leaving half-moon-shaped marks in his porcelain skin. Every inch Dean moves in further Sam feels the air forced out of his lungs until the only thing he can breathe is Dean. When Dean's balls are finally resting against Sam's ass, he only lets Dean halt his movements for a moment before he's urging him to get on with it.

"C'mon, big brother," Sam murmurs. "Need you."

It's a cheap shot and Sam knows it – Dean would probably walk across hot coals before he'd ever admit it out loud but Sam knows Dean melts inside when Sam calls him that, and even more when Sam needs him – but Sam doesn't care, especially since it works. Dean moans softly and pulls his cock all the way out, thrusting back in with one decisive motion and Sam groans like he's dying at the intensity of the pain mixed with the pleasure, all wrapped up like a Christmas present in everything else he's feeling right now.

"Dean," he says again, his voice rough and hoarse even though they just started, clawing at Dean's back. His whole world narrows down to just that one word. _Dean_. It's everything. It's the only thing that has ever mattered.

"Got you," Dean whispers to him, settling into a quick and brutal rhythm and pressing the words with kisses into Sam's skin. "Always got you, baby boy."

Dean's cock hits his prostate and pleasure spreads over Sam's body. He hitches his legs up to his chest so Dean can get to it easier, and Dean crashes into it with brute force and Sam's eyes slam shut. With every thrust he feels both healed and wounded; sewn back together and ripped back apart. It's frenzied and terrifying and perfect in its imperfection. It mends all the broken places inside Sam and smashing him to bits at the same time. A couple times Dean tries to sit up a little, probably to get better leverage, but Sam doesn't let him and Dean stops trying. Dean can't be too far away. If Sam can't feel him, if he doesn't have Dean's whole body pressed up against his, he might lose him again. Sam keeps one arm wrapped tightly around Dean's back and his other hand is cupped around Dean's neck and Sam just keeps on kissing him as they move together. The truth is, he's terrified to stop.

"You can't die, okay?" Sam says in a small voice, when it's over and he's lying wrapped up in Dean's strong arms. Sam's holding onto Dean too tightly, but he won't let go. He has his face buried in Dean's shoulder and it doesn't even is still too fresh for him to have a handle on it yet; he still feels out of control and shattered into more pieces than even Dean can put back together. Dean's freaked out, Sam can tell; not about what Sam said but about what Sam was like tonight. And Sam doesn't blame him. He's only ever frantic like that when something is really wrong, and something is _really_ wrong. This time, Sam wonders if anything will ever be right again.

"Sammy," Dean says gently, but Sam cuts him off.

"No. You can't. You have to let me save you, we have to find a way to save you. 'Cause that's what it's gonna be like for me if you die, and I … I can't. Do you hear me? I _can't_." Tears burn his eyes again and Sam can't stop them so he doesn't bother trying.

Dean sighs a little but he nods and kisses the top of Sam's head. "Okay. We'll figure it out."

Sam nods too, but for the first time since Dean made the deal, Sam's starting to think maybe they won't.


End file.
